Published in

National Academy of Sciences, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 23(101), p. 8542-8546, 2004

DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0308251101

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Dry granular flows can generate surface features resembling those seen in Martian gullies

Journal article published in 2004 by Troy Shinbrot, N.-H. Duong, L. Kwan, M. M. Alvarez ORCID
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

Over the past decade or more, contradictory evidence of Martian climate, indicating that surface temperatures seldom if ever approach the melting point of water at midlatitudes, and geomorphic features, consistent with liquid flows at these same latitudes, have proven difficult to reconcile. In this article, we demonstrate that several features of liquid-erosional flows can be produced by dry granular materials when individual particle settling is slower than characteristic debris flow speeds. Since the gravitational acceleration on Mars is about one-third that on Earth, and since particle settling speeds scale with gravity, we propose that some (although perhaps not all) Martian geomorphological features attributed to liquid flows may in fact be associated with dry granular flows in the presence of reduced gravity.